Watch how Car Crash Test Photography is done

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) in the United States does extensive research on vehicle crashes and analyses vehicle damages and personnel injuries using high tech gadgets and scientific methods. They then release their findings to media and public to spread awareness about safety in automobiles.

To do so, they have their own YouTube channel where crash test videos of different vehicles are posted along with their own documentary of how they do their analysis. These documentary videos are labelled “Inside IIHS”, posted as a series which includes brief coverage ofÂ crash test dummies at work, crash test preparation, propulsion system used to power the tests and the like. The latest in Inside IIHS series is ‘Crash Test Photography’.

In this video, IIHS takes viewers on a walk inside their crash test facility and shows how they photograph and record ultra slow motion video of vehicle impacts and crashes from different angles and POVs to help engineers understand what all happens during the impact to help tweak their design for better safety.

It is immensely fascinating to see the lighting, complex cameras, and most importantly window glass of cars shattering in slow motion and body sheet metal crumpling like paper in split second. Watch the video to know how they get every pixel of crash on tape.